Unfortunate
by Shapeshifting Author
Summary: A little peek into Josef's mind after events of B.C. High rating for rough language, nothing more.


This is my first Josef fanfic; he's a tough one to write about, at least for me. Don't worry; chapter 5 of 'Everything' will be up soon.

**Unfortunate **

Damned if his heart was broken. It was merely an unfortunate episode, a less than favorable chapter in the fascinating book that was his rather colorful life. Lola had been unique, yes, and there were a lot of years invested in the woman in question, but years he had. He'd lived 400 of them, and had every reason to assume he'd live 400 more. There'd be a parade of vixens coming in and out of his bedroom between now and then, and they'd make that bitch look sick, he'd see to it. By the time he was done, she'd just be a pale memory.

There were a lot of pale memories before her, inconvenient relics, tossed in the corner of Josef's evolving mind, shattered, lost in a brain that sliced through obstacles. There was a lot of rubble after 400 years, she wouldn't stand out.

If there were tears in his eyes, it was because he was out of a million dollars, that's what he told himself. Certainly, that was a mere drop in the bucket to his fortune, but principle didn't come cheap. Sure, she'd been diverting, but just a piece of ass, he maintained. A psychotic piece of ass at that. It actually sent a shudder through him…_him,_ Josef! Death by silver bath, your blood harvested to give pathetic little mortals a high. It was a good thing the Nazi's never got a hold of Miss Dolores Maxford Whitaker's genius, they might have won the war.

His gut was twisted with what suspiciously felt like guilt, but he scoffed that away. Guilt? How trite, how beneath him. Certainly, Mick wallowed enough in the sniveling emotion for the entire vampiric Los Angeles community, no need for Josef to join in. It was unfortunate that his money had financed the drug operation from hell, but enjoying a clairvoyant state was not among his many talents. How was he supposed to know what she'd use it for? He'd given money to lovers before, a lot more than a measly million dollars. He was known to lavish even his freshies in jewels that could finance a college education. Lola could've have asked for more, and gotten it. He'd given her the password, assuming she'd been living beyond her means again. She had expensive tastes, wanting only the best, hence dating him.

Still, his money had started a chain effect, and there was responsibility to be had. That was a word he'd tolerate, wealth demanded it, power claimed it, and Josef enjoyed both.

Clearly, he'd underestimated Lola. He'd dismissed her more dangerous qualities, writing them off as quirky or a product of her age, seen what he wanted to see. The gall of that woman to play him like some violin, treating him like some sucker. _I hope every second you were in that silver felt like a decade, Lola,_ his mind growled, rage seeping through him. _I hope you burn in it for all eternity._

Deliberately, he shoved the rage aside. No one, and sure as hell not a traitor to her race, would reduce him to this. He would not be subjected to grief, humiliation, guilt, or rage on her account. It was merely unfortunate, and there it would stay.

The future was of more immediate concern. He needed to make restitution. Oh, not out of moral obligation, that was weakness, no, out of self-preservation, he assured himself. If word got out he'd financed an operation that killed several vampires, well, he'd have enough enemies to make up a serious annoyance. He'd buy off whatever allies, friends, or lovers of the deceased vampires there were. After all, money could buy you anything, including forgiveness, and anyone who said different just wasn't rich.

Then he'd clean house, weed out any weak links in his bedroom or business empire. He was temporarily vulnerable, and could not afford a single mistake. He'd never doubted his own judgment, but perhaps this was a good lesson. Perhaps he needed to reevaluate.

Where he'd made his error with Lola was attaching importance to her. No, he'd never been delusional enough to think he could _love_ her, thank God he'd never be that far gone. But he had idiotically enough allowed himself sentimentality, to romanticize a convenient arrangement into some sort of relationship, using words like _close _and _value._ Well, never again. Unlike Mick, he didn't particularly enjoy repeating the same mistakes, tearing yourself wide open on the same hook again and again.

Maybe, like Coraline, Lola couldn't help being a few fries short of a happy meal. He suspected both women had been screwed over too many times, finally got stepped on enough to turn the tables. He could appreciate the sentiment, had been in the same place. The difference was, he kept his eyes on the big picture, if you wanted to survive, you had to stay on your guard, especially when your own urges came into question.

It really was too bad. "You could have had it all, Lola," he murmured. "I'd have given you the moon on a gold platter." Whatever money she'd made off her drug scheme, he could have tripled without batting an eyelash. Doing it his way would have been a lot more fun than getting her ass kicked by an 85 year-old, then left to die in an explosion. The irony was rich, she'd been caught in her own trap, died the same death that proved to be such a cash cow to her.

Well, she deserved to die for comparing him to Mick alone. While Mick was the one being, human or vampire, he'd ever allow himself to trust or feel real affection for completely, Mick was a human man living a vampire's life, and being compared to that was simply not acceptable. At least Mick had the decency to acknowledge Josef was a true vampire. Damned right he was.

Unlike Mick, Josef took to it from the get-go. Naturally, Mick's attitude had a lot to do with Coraline's rape turning, that alone was enough to put a bad taste in anybody's mouth. Josef, on the other hand, had walked into immortality willing, eager. His sire had been playing with a full deck. Poor, poor deluded Mick. He wasn't mourning the loss of his mortality, give it back to him, and he'd just want the fangs again, and all the perks that went with it. No, he was mourning his idealism, he was mourning the loss of whom and what he'd thought Coraline was, since falling in love with a lie never sat well with anyone. But most importantly, he was mourning his choice, the control over his own destiny.

Well, each to their own. Josef wasn't going to play priest, nursemaid, or counselor, even for his old buddy. A bark of laughter escaped his lips, harsh in the confines of the room, just picturing himself trying to squeeze into any of those roles. Well, all the same, Mick would either stop flogging himself or not. He poured himself a drink, not the useless alcoholic beverage Mick offered him, but virgin blood, a little vintage taken just today. Ah, sweet sixteen, definitely a good year. Not that he fucked them that young, this was 2007, not 1907, the teens were around strictly for blood donations.

The silence pressed on him, taunted him. Josef didn't like the quiet. His human days had been full of depressing silence, full of futility and poverty, full of all the limitations ripe in humanity. His mother had been an old woman before 35, his father a broken wimp crawling for crumbs. They were both in the ground before he was a man, having bred nine offspring like the work animals they were beforehand. The mortal coil, an exercise in misery and death.

Mick called being turned death, but Josef disagreed. The fangs of his sire had been the beginning of life, the end of weakness. Immortality was a rush Josef planned on riding for all it was worth. There was occasional tedium, sure, but entertainment was never hard to come by if you played your cards right.

Lola had been nothing but entertaining, when he'd met her all those years ago, when he joined her exclusively vampire pirate crew, looking to add a few more vices to his rather impressive résumé. The glory days of piracy were long gone, but the undead lived by their own rules, went by their own schedule. Since Lola was the kind of vampiress that'd just as soon cut your nuts off as stroke them, Josef hadn't been looking to score, just have a few good times and a little extra pocket change. Not that he'd complained when she summoned him to her chambers for a command performance, he just considered it a perk. And things just went from there.

He never heard the quiet with her.

"So, I'll make my own noise," Josef decided out loud. Still, it was unfortunate she was gone, they made beautiful music together. He downed the rest of the blood, letting sweet innocence, delicious and potent, wash the thought away.


End file.
